1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computerized methods and systems for electronic commerce, and in particular to such methods and systems used for merchandising leisure & entertainment attractions over public data networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Leisure & entertainment encompasses major consumer industries: movies, shows, concerts, operas, sports events, dining, golf, fitness, yachting, fishing, resorts, cruises, tours, museums, exhibitions, lectures, shopping, and many other commercial attractions.
Sales of leisure & entertainment attractions are highly affected by the social motive of prospective customers. The social motive can be either a driver or inhibitor of the consumption of leisure & entertainment attractions: The social motive drives consumption when one wants to meet an exiting friend, get to know a new friend, or find a soul mate, and would visit with that person a movie, restaurant or baseball game; The social motive inhibits consumption when one wants to go out to a movie, restaurant or baseball game, but gives up for lack of a companion.
Although the Internet and the media provide ample leisure & entertainment information with respect to where to go and what to do, the motivated individual, couple or family still has the burden of arranging with whom to meet, for what attraction and when. While the convenience aspect of “when” can benefit from some recent innovations in calendar-coordination (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,085,166 and 6,505,167B1; and U.S. patent application publication 2005/0038690A1), the socially-critical aspects of with whom to meet and for what attraction, have so far been ignored, except for the related parent U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/841,268.
Most importantly, the correlation between sales of leisure & entertainment attractions and the social motive that drives their consumption has not been recognized by the leisure & entertainment industry. In fact, the industry continues to push its products into the consumer marketplace through a tremendous investment in advertising, and disregards the alternative of encouraging prospective customers to pull such products by addressing their social motives.
There is thus an unfulfilled need for methods and systems for addressing the social motives that drive leisure & entertainment consumption.